Osho – Beware of the scholars; they are the most stupid people around. But they talk beautifully, and if you are not alert you can be very easily deceived by them. They recite Koran, they recite Bhagavad Gita, they quote the Vedas, the Upanishads, they comment and they interpret, and in a very logical way, in a convincing way – it will appeal to your mind.
But, in fact, Buddha never wanted to appeal to your mind, neither Krishna wanted to appeal to your mind. They wanted to help you to go beyond the mind. They were not to convince your mind, because if you are convinced about a certain idea you will remain IN the mind. They were trying to unhinge you from the mind.
Can you see the totally different purpose? The purpose of a Master is to push you beyond the boundaries of the mind, and the purpose of the scholar is to convince you intellectually about the rightness, about the validity of a certain ideology, philosophy. He makes your mind more strengthened, he gives you more mind. The Master takes away your mind, the Master destroys your mind. The teacher nourishes your mind. So many times the teacher will look more appealing to you, more convincing to you.
You can miss the Master very easily because he will seem a dangerous person to be around. A teacher seems to be very fulfilling; he enhances your ego. It is not accidental that the West has respected the teacher because the West has believed for thousands of years that the ego has to be strengthened, that a strong ego is needed; without a strong ego a man has no personality. It is true: without a strong ego a man has no personality; but ego is false, so is personality.
The word ”personality” comes from a Greek word PERSONA; PERSONA means a mask. In ancient days Greek actors used masks. Those PERSONAS, masks, we are all carrying. A strong ego certainly gives you a strong personality in the original sense of the word, but the personality is not individuality and the ego is not your soul – just the contrary.
The Master destroys your personality so that your individuality can be discovered. He dismantles your personality, he takes away all your masks, so that you can know your original face. His work is difficult and only very courageous people can be with him because it is surgical. Your mask has become almost part of your existence; to take it away now needs surgery. It is not easy to take it away, it is painful. Only a Master is needed to take it away. Slowly slowly, chunk by chunk, he goes on taking away your mask. Finally, when the mask has completely disappeared, you discover your reality, your original face.
The teacher gives you to think much; the Master only gives you a meditativeness. The teacher gives you much to dream about, to desire about; the Master hammers on all your dreams and destroys them. The Master is against your sleep; the teacher is a sedative, a tranquilizer. The Master is not a solace, is not a consolation, is not a tranquilizer. The Master hurts, wounds, but he transforms. A man finds himself in purgatory. The angel-in-charge welcomes him in.
”Not your turn today,” says the angel. ”You still have more time to pass on earth. Come with me.”
The angel takes him to a huge room full of small bottles full of oil. ”These show how much life you have left,” says the angel. His bottle is almost empty.
”Can I see my wife’s and children’s bottles?” he asks.
”Sure,” says the angel, pointing to the three bottles next to his. The man cannot believe his eyes. For the children, the quantity seems normal, but his wife seems to have an extraordinary large quantity in her bottle.
Left alone and thinking, as the angel is working with newcomers, he delicately sticks his finger in his wife’s bottle, takes a little oil and puts it in his own one. He keeps on doing this until the two bottles are more or less even. He wants to go on, but is suddenly awakened by a big slap and his wife’s voice saying, ”You dirty old man, always wandering fingers, even when I sleep!”
Man is deep asleep, dreaming, desiring, of hell, of heaven, of thousand-and-one things. The function of the Master is to hit you so hard that you cannot avoid waking up.
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2″